Conservative MP Chak Au is estimated to be earning a total of $314,757 as both an MP and British Columbia City Councillor. British Columbia Conservative MP Chak Au, the only person in the House of Commons holding two elected offices simultaneously—as an MP and a municipal councillor—is expected to earn $314,757 in his first year in federal office from both...
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says Canada isn't considering a ban of the social media platform X. The platform, which is owned by Elon Musk, has been embroiled in controversy over sexualized deepfakes created by X's chatbot Grok. On Saturday, The Telegraph reported the U.K. government was gathering international support to respond to the controversy, with Canada sharing U.K. Prime...
Prime minister will travel to Qatar, Switzerland after meeting with China's president. As the prime minister gears up to visit China, his parliamentary secretary, MP Kody Blois, says Mark Carney would like to "recalibrate" Canada's once-frosty relationship with the Chinese government and look at economic opportunities for the two nations. "The trip next week is a continuation of that turning...
Despite 3 front-runners, some fear race could be turning into a snoozer. The NDP leadership race could be turning into a nail-biter with no clear winner in sight. But it's unclear if Canadians are tuning in. The field of candidates now has three front-runners, several NDP strategists and analysts tell CBC News.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to meet with China’s president next week, farmers in Saskatchewan are hopeful progress can be made toward removing the punishing tariffs placed on Canadian canola and peas. Both crops make up about 70 per cent of what Ryan Scragg grows on his farm 30 minutes northeast of Prince Albert. “It’s been a tough year...
A new Liaison Strategies survey of Nova Scotia voters finds Premier Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives holding a 19-point lead on ballot support and strong numbers on approval, healthcare, and the province’s relationship with Ottawa but the province-wide numbers mask an NDP lead in Halifax where the opposition party leads 40% to 31%. If a provincial election were held today, 50%...
The proportion of Albertans who are in favour of sovereignty has increased over the past year and a half, a new Research Co. poll has found. In the online survey of a representative national sample, 31% of Albertans support Alberta becoming a country independent from Canada, up nine points since a similar Research Co. poll conducted in June 2023. Just...
Dedicated to those who are continuing the fight against tyranny around the world, and those who have died in the struggle. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal is famous for his sharp aphorisms. One of my favourites is this: “Justice without force is powerless. But force without justice is tyranny.” I quoted these words in a Policy piece in 2022 after...
It has been an alarming start to 2026, thanks to Donald Trump. In just seven days, Trump’s America has plucked a leader out of Venezuela and hauled him to the U.S. to face justice and seriously revved up its intents to acquire Greenland. At home, Trump’s decision to install federal immigration agents in U.S. cities has escalated into violence —...
Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne is in Washington, D.C., Sunday and Monday for meetings on trade and critical minerals. The government says in a news release Champagne is meeting with G7 counterparts and "other like-minded countries." It says Champagne will take part in a finance ministers' meeting to discuss critical minerals supply chains, hosted by the U.S. treasury secretary.
Canada and the United States say two preclearance projects that would allow more travellers to be screened well in advance of crossing the border are set to proceed this year after many months of planning. The assurances follow U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra's comments that cast doubt on the future of arrangements currently allowing many passengers flying to American...
A major geopolitical fault line shifted Saturday morning, as the United States arrested Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro after a quarter century of socialist tyranny. This is a good thing. Canada did not recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela, and with him out of the way, we hope that Venezuelans will finally be able to enjoy freedom and democracy...
Prime Minister Mark Carney heads to Beijing this week with the goal of easing Sino-Canadian tensions and boosting trade. But he is also walking into a political minefield—one laid not just by the Chinese but also Washington. The biggest minefield right now is the EV-Canola trade war. China slapped punitive tariffs on Canada’s lucrative canola exports last year in retaliation...
From the rest of the free world, what we are watching right now feels unsettlingly familiar. Not because the United States is powerful. That has always been true. Not because it is acting in its own interests. Every country does that. What feels different is the growing sense that America is no longer committed to playing by the same rules...
For decades, Jim Balsillie was best known as the co-CEO of Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry, and someone who almost brought another NHL team to Canada. But in recent years, he’s turned his attention to trying to get decision-makers to embrace a new destiny for Canada, one in which we focus less on being hewers of wood and...
While Canada’s condemnation of the Iranian regime’s brutal attempts to quell the latest popular uprising against its corrupt and insane leadership is welcome, it flies in the face of the actual Liberal record in dealing with Iran.
The enfeebling ambiguity of Canada as a government and a state among the nations of the world is underlined almost every week. The prime minister’s statement on the removal of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was commendably critical of the former president and skirted international law questions in a way that permits Carney to claim to recognize them without aggravating...
As former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland steps down from the seat she's held since 2013 to take a new job as an economic adviser to the Ukrainian government, the Power & Politics panel of party insiders discusses how her departure may play out politically in a minority government.
Poor Donald Trump. He’s being laughed at, but he thinks it’s a compliment. A year ago, Trump’s favourite newspaper, the New York Post, first made the amusing change from the Monroe Doctrine to the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’ The former was named after American president James Monroe and his policy on the Americas from two centuries ago. The ‘Don’ in the revised...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pre-Christmas shuffle of top bureaucrats was one of the biggest in recent memory. And it was likely a prelude to more such changes in the senior ranks of the public service as his Liberal government moves to speed up the otherwise glacial pace of decision-making in Ottawa. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more than moving...
If it came in isolation, one might look at the toothless debates over the legality of the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and chalk it up as another American intervention in Latin America. But the context is not the same. It’s not just that U.S. President Donald Trump warned Colombian President Gustavo Petro that he could be next...
The Danish people are feeling shocked, and not a little betrayed, by President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark, says one of the country’s most senior diplomats. “Denmark has done everything the U.S. has asked of us. They called and we delivered: in Iraq, Libya and especially in Afghanistan, where we had...
Mark Carney confronts innumerable challenges here at home and globally as he enters his second year as prime minister. But rising economic anxieties fueled by an international trading order turned on its head aren’t likely to be the prime minister’s most daunting challenge in 2026. Instead, Carney’s biggest political threat is likely to emerge from within his own party...
In December 2022, a parliamentary committee launched an investigation into “tech giants’ current and ongoing use of intimidation and subversion tactics to evade regulation in Canada and around the world.” Meta, the tech giant, took that personally.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “elbows up” rhetoric hasn’t exactly translated into action, and the recent events surrounding the American capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro are just the latest example of this. Don’t get me wrong: nobody expects Carney or Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand to go out of their way to antagonize the Trump administration with bravado-laden statements. Anything...
WHEN HITLER SWALLOWED CZECHOSLOVAKIA in 1938 and then divided Poland with Stalin in 1939, my parents’ generation decided, coming home from the war, to place the sovereignty of nation states at the heart of the United Nations Charter. With the operation in Venezuela, our generation has to ask, and not for the first time, whether anything now survives of a...
The clinical military extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week has exposed many policy and legal issues implicating future American hemispheric involvement, including American threats toward Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark. The rationale for the attacks on Venezuela, as articulated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was to enforce U.S. law, since Maduro and his wife had...
When Alfred Nobel drafted his will in 1895, he gave his Peace Prize a deceptively simple mandate: to honour those who had done the most to advance fraternity among nations, reduce standing armies, and promote peace through co-operation and dialogue. Nobel was no romantic: He was an industrialist who invented dynamite and amassed a fortune from armaments, and he understood...
For those inclined to rejoice at the capture of Maduro and the display of U.S. military muscle in Venezuela, caution is warranted. What may appear, at first glance, as a decisive blow against a brutal and corrupt government carries consequences that extend far beyond Caracas, and far beyond the immediate satisfaction of seeing an authoritarian ruler displaced.
The monster of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is gone. Good. Most can agree on that, despite the trashing of international law employed by the Donald Trump administration to get him. But as the predator President of the United States warns of toppling other nations – which, for one thing, distracts from afflictions in his own broken country – the task will...
The good news about the U.S. abduction of Nicolás Maduro is that Venezuela is finally rid of a corrupt, violent and buffoonish leader. The bad news is that the country may soon be under the power of another corrupt, violent and buffoonish leader — Donald Trump — who is itching to use his military might on other countries in the...
Occam’s razor is the principle that the most plausible explanation of events is the simplest. Most often this is true. To account for Donald Trump, however, we need a different hermeneutical instrument. Say hello to Occam’s kazoo: the principle that the most plausible explanation, so far as Mr. Trump is involved, is invariably the stupidest. To understand his motives in...
Chrystia Freeland appears to have developed a knack for making career moves that shake up Liberal governments. A little more than a year since the former finance minister dramatically exited Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, triggering his departure and a whole new Liberal era, Freeland’s announced plans to step down as an MP have set things in motion for an imminent shakeup...
In the past days and weeks, we have witnessed the Finlandization of Canada. In Finland’s case during the Cold War that meant, in the words of the Finnish political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen, “bowing to the East, without mooning the West.”
From “Dr. New Deal” to “Dr. Win-the-War.” That’s how American President Franklin Roosevelt described his transformation in the days and months following the attack on Pearl Harbor and his country’s entry into the Second World War.
Operation Just Cause in Panama. Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran. And now, Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela. The American branding of military interventions is its own propaganda sub-specialty. Of course, that last one — Donald Trump’s January 3rd removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office and rendition to Brooklyn to face drug trafficking charges — comes with its own...
The year is off to a fast start, and so is the Good Talk panel. How worried should Canada be after the US invasion of Venezuela and Donald Trump's constant threats towards some of his closest neighbours? Also, Chrystia Freeland pulls the plug on her Ottawa career and sets up shop in Ukraine. All that and more in our first...
A former Alberta energy minister says a proposed bitumen pipeline to the northwest B.C. coast is unlikely to materialize if Canada relies on the private sector alone to build it. “I would say it's not just diminishing, the likelihood of a private sector proponent.… I would almost say it is zero at this point,” Sonya Savage said on CBC's West...
MONTREAL -- Demonstrations were held in several Canadian cities today to voice support for the Iranian people as a popular uprising sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark.
The Royal Canadian Air Force wants to hire more than a thousand new security personnel over the next five years at bases across the country — just as it brings its new F-35 stealth fighter jets into service. Internal documents from spring 2025, obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access-to-Information law, show the Air Force drafted a plan to...
The Canadian government is not planning any new action against X.com amid the company’s ongoing scandal over AI-generated child sexual abuse material and “nudified” images of women. The social media company, formerly Twitter, has for weeks allowed its in-house AI program Grok to create unauthorized, sexualized images of women stripped of their clothing and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) based...
The Net-Zero Advisory Body is asking Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin to publicly pause the advisory group until she appoints six new members and agrees to regular meetings, part of an effort to get the body “functional” again, says Karen Ross, one of only four remaining members. “We cannot continue in a state in which we are, functionally and operationally, unable...
Conservative delegates will vote later this month on whether Pierre Poilievre should continue to serve as leader, and while party insiders expect him to easily survive, they say changes are needed to defeat the Liberals in the next election. A Conservative insider who previously worked for Poilievre said the Tory leader doesn’t need to drastically overhaul his style but has...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is joining European leaders in condemning Russia's use of a powerful hypersonic missile on Ukraine as an escalation. Carney says Russia's second use of the Oreshnik missile is "a clear and dangerous escalation that targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the homes of innocent Ukrainians."
Conservative grassroots will debate amending the party’s policy towards diversity, as well as deleting a clause that says a future government would not support legislation restricting abortion, when they meet in Calgary later this month. Delegates from across the country will gather at the party’s first convention since the 2025 spring election loss to vote on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s...
A new global risk assessment is warning that no country would be more “profoundly affected” by a political upheaval in the U.S. than Canada. Published Monday, the Eurasia Group’s “Top Risks For 2026″ report cites deep economic, security and geographic ties that leave Canada especially exposed to instability south of the border. Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, identifies what...
Tensions reached a boiling point under Carney's Liberal predecessor Justin Trudeau, whose anti-fossil fuels policies were a major irritant to the region. A new poll shows that tensions with Ottawa are declining in all four western provinces, with perceptions of the federal government improving especially rapidly in Alberta. The poll, taken by Pollara Strategic Insights, finds that half of Western...
Iran signalled on Friday that security forces would crack down on protesters, directly challenging U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to support those peacefully demonstrating, as the death toll rose to at least 62. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands "stained with the blood of Iranians" as his supporters shouted "Death to America!" in footage aired by...
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney Thursday afternoon and the Canadian leader accepted an invitation to visit Brazil in April. In a social media post summarizing the phone call, Lula also says that both leaders condemned the United States' use of force in Venezuela and call for reform to global governance...
Statistics Canada says a boost in the number of people looking for work in December drove the unemployment rate higher at the end of the year. The agency said the economy added 8,200 jobs last month, topping economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate rose to 6.8 per cent in December, StatCan said, up from 6.5 per cent in November.
Just short of majority, Liberals will be down an MP at least until byelection is called. Former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland is officially vacating her seat in the House of Commons on Friday, leaving the Liberal government — which is within striking distance of a majority — one MP down for the time being. Freeland's resignation adds to what was...
Joint project with Eutelsat promoted by French president during G7 summit. A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, already provides some services to the...
Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland's resignation as a member of Parliament takes effect today as she takes up a new voluntary role advising the Ukrainian government. Freeland's absence from the Liberal caucus will leave Prime Minister Mark Carney two seats short of a majority government, despite his party's gain of a pair of seats last year when two Conservative MPs...
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday cited U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to make Canada the “51st state” as an example of American foreign policy that is sacrificing allies for “the law of the strongest.” Macron’s blunt remarks were matched by similar comments from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a separate speech that showed European leaders’ growing concern as Trump...
Two people are hospitalized after they were shot by federal agents, the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. It is not immediately clear what their conditions are. The FBI Portland office said in a post on X that the shooting involved Customs and Border Protection agents and they are leading the investigation.
Stephen Harper’s official prime ministerial portrait will be unveiled next month as part of commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the modern Conservative Party first winning power. The painting, by Canadian artist Phil Richards, will be revealed at an event on Parliament Hill on Feb. 3, three years after work first started on the project. The next night, Mr. Harper...
At some point almost every young person comes to one of two startling realizations, that seem to upend everything they have ever been taught. The first: We’re the bad guys. America, Canada, the West: We’ve done all sorts of terrible things! All that rot about democracy and freedom, fighting dictatorships and all that, when it’s our leaders who are the...
Canada's closest physical neighbours are in an escalating dispute that risks breaking the military alliance that has protected the nations of the North Atlantic for decades. U.S. President Donald Trump keeps talking about annexing Greenland, the Danish territory where Canada is about to open a diplomatic mission. Here's a look at why diplomacy, climate change and natural resources have put...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Doha, Qatar on Jan. 18 for a bilateral visit as he seeks to broaden trade relations and drum up foreign investment. It's part of a broader diplomatic trip that will include stops in China and Switzerland, and Carney's office says he will be the first sitting Canadian prime minister to visit the middle...
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to stand firm when he travels to China later next week and keep the steep tariffs on its electric vehicles in place. Canada opened a trade irritant with China when the government, in lockstep with then-U.S. president Joe Biden, slapped a 100 per cent tariff on EVs — arguing the...
'I can’t understand why a government can’t get down to business and operate rigorously,' says Alan Williams, a former assistant deputy minister of materiel at National Defence. The federal government missing its own deadline for the release of its highly anticipated Defence Industrial Strategy can hurt the industry, and signals to other countries that Canada is “inept and incompetent,” says...
Former Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Albert Chan Wai-yip is a longtime critic of China, who has accused its government of "crimes against humanity" after a crackdown on dissent in the Chinese special administrative region. But Chan said it is time for Canadians to look east again, as Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares for a trip to China where he will...
The cancellation of a planned event at York University has led some Conservative MPs to accuse students there of attacking free speech. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis says he was denied permission to hold an event on campus on Friday.
A former Canadian diplomat previously detained in China for nearly three years says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s upcoming visit to China is an important diplomatic move but warns that Canadian negotiators need to be cautious about Beijing’s ultimate motives. “China is a very complicated challenge for Canada, even more so now, given all the challenges we have in dealing with...
Ottawa has asked the governments of South Korea and Germany, two countries with companies bidding to build the Canadian navy’s next submarine, to facilitate auto industry production pledges in Canada as part of the pitches, a source familiar with the matter said.
A prominent Inuk lawyer and activist born in Greenland says U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comments about taking control of the territory should be concerning for the entire international community. Aaju Peter, who has lived in Iqaluit since the 1980s, told CTV News Channel on Thursday that she didn’t initially take Trump’s comments about annexing Greenland seriously. “But now, seeing...
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state must stand up to Republican President Donald Trump 's "assault on our values," using his final State of the State address Thursday to contrast his state as a bulwark against what he called a chaotic federal government.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House refused Thursday to override President Donald Trump's veto of two low-profile bills as Republicans stuck with the president despite their prior support for the measures.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate advanced a resolution Thursday that would limit President Donald Trump's ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela, sounding a note of disapproval for his expanding ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he plans to meet with Danish officials next week after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over Greenland, the strategic Arctic island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark. Rubio told U.S. lawmakers that Trump wants to buy it, rather than use military force.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is joining European leaders in condemning Russia's use of a powerful hypersonic missile on Ukraine as an escalation. Carney says Russia's second use of the Oreshnik missile is "a clear and dangerous escalation that targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the homes of innocent Ukrainians."
Iran signalled on Friday that security forces would crack down on protesters, directly challenging U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to support those peacefully demonstrating, as the death toll rose to at least 62. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands "stained with the blood of Iranians" as his supporters shouted "Death to America!" in footage aired by...
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney Thursday afternoon and the Canadian leader accepted an invitation to visit Brazil in April. In a social media post summarizing the phone call, Lula also says that both leaders condemned the United States' use of force in Venezuela and call for reform to global governance...
Two people are hospitalized after they were shot by federal agents, the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. It is not immediately clear what their conditions are. The FBI Portland office said in a post on X that the shooting involved Customs and Border Protection agents and they are leading the investigation.
Former Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Albert Chan Wai-yip is a longtime critic of China, who has accused its government of "crimes against humanity" after a crackdown on dissent in the Chinese special administrative region. But Chan said it is time for Canadians to look east again, as Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares for a trip to China where he will...
Lisa Van Dusen: Senator Boehm, that was quite a year. Between the trade war, Donald Trump’s renewed undermining of multilateralism, and the geopolitical implications of American degradation — I think Trump’s recent National Security Strategy may have summed it up best as a capstone to 2025. How do you see Trump II, Year One? Sen. Peter Boehm: In foreign policy...
The year 2025 was a year of volatility, experimentation, and recalibration across Asia and Canada. Much of the volatility stemmed from U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda, which upended global trade norms and injected new uncertainty into supply chains. China, meanwhile, pressed ahead with an increasingly assertive industrial strategy, even as it contended with slower domestic growth and structural...
Even modest Canadian engagement with China may be judged less on its merits than on how it is interpreted in the U.S. within a framework designed to ‘wind down adversarial outside influence.’
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) gets a lot of flak for its processing of Access to Information Act (ATIA) requests, especially for its long delays to respond. But lately they’ve been doing a few things right.
A thorough media scan reveals practically no discussion about this important escalation, which would put Canada among only a few Western navies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) that operate submarine-launched land-attack weapons.
You may want to dust off your Bescherelles, Canadian politicos: the battle for the future of Québec is where things are going to happen in 2026. In case you missed it, today the new leader of the Québec Liberal Party, Pablo Rodriguez, announced his resignation. His resignation was precipitated by a terrible, scandalous month for the QLP — one that...
Trump invades Venezuela, grabs Nicolas Maduro and his wife, says he will run the country for a while, and he's going to fix the country's oil production while he's at it. Our first Monday of the new year and Dr Janice Stein is ready to talk about how worried Canada should be.
There are hardly any governments in the world right now who aren't faced with an "affordability" crisis? Voters want action but what action is even possible? That's the question on our first Moore Butts Conversation of 2026.
We're less than two weeks into 2026, and Canada is starting the year staring down sudden new threats to its economy — and its security. After a surprise operation to establish a foothold in oil-rich Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump is now emphasizing his aspirations for Greenland. Host Catherine Cullen speaks with two national security veterans — Jody Thomas, former...
Greetings and a happy 2026, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! What better way to kick off our podcast year than by convening the most popular panel we run at Air Quotes Media. So demanded by this listenership, we’ve welcomed back The Chiefs to give us their governance wisdom! These are 3 former Chiefs of Staff to some of Canada’s...
